Anna Wilde Mathews

Reporter, The Wall Street Journal.

Anna Wilde Mathews covers health insurnce for the Wall Street Journal. She has written for the Journal since 1996, and she has spent more than 10 years covering health, including a consumer column on health and money issues, pharmacy-benefit managers, hospitals, the Food and Drug Administration and health policy in Washington. A native of Wisconsin, Anna currently lives in the Los Angeles area with her husband and three sons.

Articles by Anna Wilde Mathews

As Republicans gear up to overhaul the federal health law, they face pushback from a couple unexpected corners on one of their goals: Giving health insurers greater ability to sell policies to consumers across state lines.

Newly unsealed court testimony shows health insurers Anthem and Cigna have significant disagreements over their proposed merger, offering details about a rift that is highly unusual for two companies pressing to merge.

Health-insurance premiums for Alaskans have been soaring almost 40% a year. That prompted the state government to make a novel move: to pay health costs for about 500 of the sickest residents to hold down premiums for everyone else.

For health insurance startup Oscar Insurance, the election of Donald Trump could be a tough pill to swallow, complicated by ownership ties to the incoming administration that will put it under a bright spotlight.

As consumers begin shopping for health insurance on Affordable Care Act exchanges, rate increases are hitting one group particularly hard: people who make too much money to qualify for the law’s subsidies.

Cigna Corp. will stop requiring that patients and doctors jump through extra hoops known as prior authorization to receive coverage of a medication to treat opioid addiction under a settlement with New York State’s Attorney General.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona will offer plans on the Affordable Care Act exchange in Arizona’s Pinal County next year, resolving a situation that drew a national spotlight because it represented a major challenge to the mechanics of the health law.

Under intense pressure to curb costs that have led to losses on the Affordable Care Act exchanges, insurers are accelerating their move toward plans that offer limited choices of doctors and hospitals.

Nearly a third of U.S. counties look likely to have just a single insurer offering health plans on the ACA’s exchanges next year, according to a new analysis, an industry pullback that adds to the challenges facing the law.